By Jen Samuel,Managing Editor
Today is the 91st anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in which women were granted the legal right to vote.
It was an outcome derived from 72 years of advocacy and sacrifices led by American women also known as suffragists.
”The significance of the passage of Woman’s Suffrage can not be overstated,” said Molly Murphy MacGregor, executive director and cofounder of the National Women’s History Project. “Its goal was to enfranchise half the nation. How can a nation be a democracy when half the citizens are denied the right to vote?”
The Woman’s Suffrage Movement originated as women’s rights were declared during the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in upstate New York 163 years ago.
That event, organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, featured speakers advocating not only women’s rights, including the right to vote, but also for the abolition of slavery.
Slavery was abolished in 1865 with the passage of the 13th Amendment. Non-Caucasian men were granted the right to vote in 1870 with the passage of the 15th Amendment.
However, women of all races would continue to be denied that same right for another 50 years.
Both Ms. Mott and Ms. Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Seneca Falls Declaration, for the 1848 historic convention, which outlined women’s rights, as inspired by the Declaration of Independence albeit with many noticeable changes.
”We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal,” the Declaration of Sentiments reads.
The writers went on to compare the suppressions of women’s rights to the suppression of rights by King George III of England as outlined by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
”Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides,” the Declaration of Sentiments states.
”He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life . . . Now, . . . because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.”
Despite this declaration, it would be another 72 years before women were granted the right to vote after that historic convention took place.
However, the winds of change, and the birth of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, had begun.
It grew momentum and national attention through such organizations as the American Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman Suffrage Association emerged and began advocacy work. By 1890, those organizations joined to become the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
As time progressed in American history, women from all backgrounds led well-organized marches and protests throughout the country and obtained national and state petitions in favor of the Suffrage Amendment.
Many suffragists were arrested, imprisoned and some event beaten although they were participating in peaceful demonstrations.
There was a strong anti-suffrage movement in America led by organizations such as the National Association Opposed to Woman’s Suffrage.
Despite anti-suffrage efforts, women could run for Congress.
Jeannette Rankin, of Montana, became of the first woman elected to Congress in 1817. It would be another three years before Congresswoman Rankin’s own right to vote would be guaranteed by federal law.
In 1913, Alice Paul, who was inspired by the bolder methods of the English suffragists, founded the Congressional Union, which later became the National Women’s Party. Ms. Paul was considered militant by some.
She led demonstrations in front of the White House beginning in January 1917. The women picketers held banners that posed the famous question: “Mr. President How Long Must Women Wait For Liberty?”
By July, she and many other women who had been picketing the White House in civil disobedience were arrested. Ms. Paul transferred from Occoquan Workhouse to a psychiatric ward.
She was eventually released, in part due to pressure from the media.
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson came forward in support of the Suffrage Amendment.
”When New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917 and President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918, the political balance began to shift,” according to the National Archives article “The Constitution: The 19th Amendment.”
Additionally, as a consequence of World War I, women throughout the United States worked in industrial factories across the nation to help support the troops while strengthening the economy.
President Wilson cited the war abroad as an urgent reason to support the Suffrage Amendment.
In May of 1919, the House of Representatives proposed the 19th Amendment with a vote of 304 to 89.
Two weeks later, in June 4, the United States Senate passed the measure 56 to 25.
”When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on Aug. 18, 1920, the amendment passed its final hurdle of obtaining the agreement of three-fourths of the states. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on Aug. 26, 1920, changing the face of the American electorate forever,” the National Archives document states.
In 1928, eight years after America, all women in England were granted the right to vote.
Today, women are denied the right to vote in several countries including Saudi Arabia, Vatican City, and Brunei.
For more information on the National Women’s History Project, visit www.nwhp.org.
